


your heartstrings are covered in rust

by ncfan



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: A touch of unrequited feelings on Kliff's part, But not enough to put this in the ship tag, Gen, Introspection, Pre-Canon, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 01:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18840634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: The midsummer festival was just being held in town, this year; there wasn’t enough food gathered from the harvest for Ram Village to hold a festival of their own. That left Kliff and Alm pretty much on their own.





	your heartstrings are covered in rust

**Author's Note:**

> There are some mentions of what, by modern standards, would be considered underage drinking. I am going off of medieval standards, where young kids often drink watered-down alcohol because the water often wasn’t safe to drink by itself (though there doesn’t seem to be as much need of that in Zofia, if all the skins of drinking water you find in dungeons are any indication, and even in medieval Europe, well water was usually safe to drink), and there isn’t really a set ‘drinking age.’

The midsummer festival was just being held in town, this year; there wasn’t enough food gathered from the harvest for Ram Village to hold a festival of their own. There was a part of Kliff that was grateful for that. When the village held festivals, strangers poured in from miles around and just _refused_ to leave for days afterwards, getting drunk on the village wine and loitering in the dusty streets. (Yes, street _s_ , though you could count the number on both hands.) It was difficult enough to find peace and quiet when the village wasn’t contending with an influx of revelers. When it was, Kliff could usually be found ensconced in the back corner of the barn furthest from the village square.

But the absence of a festival in Ram Village was a double-edged sword. News and stories of the outside world were difficult to come by, and virtually the only way to get it was through outsiders. Gray and his father had to devote so much effort just to get to town without being robbed or injured by brigands that once they actually got to town, nearly all they could focus on was selling or buying their goods, they were so tired. It had been more than eight months since the last traveling merchant or peddler had arrived on the village’s doorstep, and they hadn’t had any messengers from further north in even longer.

There were two people in the village from further away, who had traveled much in their lives, who could both have served as a fountain of stories if they wished. But Sir Mycen was close-mouthed, and Kliff had learned years ago not to expect any blood from that stone. And Kliff’s own mother was nearly as close-mouthed; whenever she had let something slip, he was certain she had done it by accident. He knew better than to ever expect her to regale him with tales of her childhood in Rigel, and honestly? Honestly, Kliff had been spending a lot less time at home these past several months, even less than he had used to as a young child. There was little point in seeking a person out for something ultimately unnecessary when the meeting would certainly end unhappily.

There would be no midsummer festival in Ram Village this year. Kliff would not have to contend with the loud, boorish visitors that flooded through the gates. As far as Kliff’s mother was concerned, it was far too dangerous for him to travel to town for the festival being held there, and thus it would be impossible for him to overhear news of what was going on in wider Zofia, impossible for him to overhear new stories of the wider world. He was already anticipating asking for news from his friends when they returned, and… He wasn’t looking forward to it. Dreaded it. That wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t right. He dreaded it, regardless.

So it was that Kliff stood at the gates, watching as the last wagon left down the narrow, dusty road, the oxen letting out low cries as they were driven onwards. It was either Gray or Tobin’s father driving it; Faye and Gray and Tobin were piled in the back among the straw, with one of Gray’s sisters and some of Tobin’s younger siblings sitting with them. They were chattering amongst themselves, and though Kliff knew how his skin would have crawled if he had been stuck sitting in that wagon for more than a few minutes, captive audience and captive conversant, he could only watch in helpless frustration as the wagon was swallowed up by the greenery of the surrounding forest.

He wasn’t alone in watching them head off.

“So your mother wouldn’t let you go?” Alm framed it as a question, but there was no question in his eyes as he spoke, and a wry expression akin to a smile stole over his mouth.

“No,” Kliff said shortly.

Where to go for a few hours’ peace? The heat bent down on his back like the strike of hammer against anvil, and there were few clouds to hide the face of the sun. Kliff would have to find somewhere with quite a lot of shade. Or, maybe, somewhere away from the sun altogether. In all but the deepest shade, his skin burned more easily and more quickly than anyone in the village, or so it felt like—certainly, more easily and more quickly than any of his friends. He didn’t feel like courting a sunburn today.

A rueful laugh escaped Alm’s mouth, a noise that still managed to surprise Kliff by how appealing it was. “Grandfather still doesn’t want me leaving the village, so I guess that just makes the two of us.”

“Sir Mycen…” Kliff shrugged his shoulders slightly, a gesture that made itself seen more in his arms than his shoulder, really. “…Isn’t here, though.”

“Yeah, I know. But someone’d tell the moment he comes back, and I…” Alm broke off, that almost-smile on his face breaking into the broken halves of a frown. He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “I want to prove to him that I can handle it. If I go sneaking off behind his back, he’ll _never_ trust me to go out at all, let alone by myself.”

“Hmm.”

The moment Kliff came of age, he was leaving Ram Village as far behind him as he could. Regardless of what Mother said, regardless of what she thought, he was leaving. He wondered, at times, whether he would miss his friends once he had left, but he knew he would not miss the mossy trammel of the village walls. Not for a moment.

Alm wanted to travel, too, didn’t he?

Maybe they’d travel together. Kliff thought he might like that.

But before he could say anything to that effect (or wonder at the urge to say it at all), Alm cut it all short with a quick smile. “Well, there’s no use moping around here, just waiting for them to come back. Could be days, if the inns aren’t full.”

“They’ll be back before then. Faye will, at least; her family has goats to look after.”

“Yeah, but _we’re_ not just going to sit around and wait for them to come back.” Alm clapped a hand onto Kliff’s shoulder. “Come on.”

Bemused, Kliff followed after him, curious, at least, to see what it was Alm had in mind (And fully prepared to balk if the conditions were correct for doing so).

Alm didn’t lead them back towards the house Kliff shared with his mother, though Kliff didn’t know why he had feared that outcome in the first place. Before Alm had gotten old enough for Sir Mycen to be comfortable leaving him by himself when he left the village on whatever business it was that took him away, it was Kliff’s mother who was inevitably entrusted with Alm’s care, and Alm had learned early on to clear out of the house as early in the morning as possible. (When Celica had still been living here, it had been just the same for her. Kliff could still remember the three of them making their excuses just after breakfast was finished, or not even bothering with that and darting out before his mother could realize what was happening.)

Nor did Alm head towards his own home—and given how much time Alm devoted to sparring and developing his skill with the blade even when Sir Mycen wasn’t around, Kliff was honestly a little surprised. He had wondered, however briefly, if that was what Alm wanted him for. These days, if he sparred with anyone, it was usually Gray, but boredom did make for desperation. But the path Alm was leading them down took them out of the vicinity of the few people remaining in the village, so Kliff couldn’t really complain, regardless of the reason.

There was a patch of green in the furthest western reaches of the village, where the only thing to differentiate it from the forest beyond the village was that stretch of porous, crumbling gray stone that passed for their wall, so thickly carpeted in places with moss that it was virtually indistinguishable from the earth. Kliff had come here often enough, both with and without his friends. When you took just a few steps into the green, the trees swallowed up the outside world in a storm of leaves and branches, and the village itself was so distant a reality that if you tried hard enough, you could pretend that Ram Village simply didn’t exist, or that you had left it far behind you.

Kliff had never been very good at games of make-believe, and as soon as the slightest sound emanated from the village proper, the fantasy of being far away from this place was obliterated. He tried not to indulge in fantasy too often, not after its destruction had left such a bitter taste in his mouth that he’d snapped at Tobin simply for walking alongside him on the way home. It was better not to let bitterness germinate within.

Kliff stood in the green, wary and bitter and barley able to be grateful for how dense the canopy was (no sunburn today, at least), but this little patch of forest seemed to carry none of the same associations for Alm, who strode forward confidently. He cast about for a place to sit, finally settling on the knotty, grasping roots of a hickory tree, patched with moss and patched with scaly wood.

When he looked up at Kliff, his face was lit only by the slimmest shafts of sunlight, winking in and out of existence with the slightest flutter of its leaves. “You okay?”

This was one of the places that, lately, Kliff had taken to retreating to when he wanted to be alone. Deliberately seeking it out in the company of another had the wrongness of rubbing sandpaper against bare skin. He shouldn’t feel like this. He shouldn’t feel like this, and so Kliff sat down in the gap between two of the roots, each of them as thick as his thigh, without saying a word.

And Alm didn’t see the need to break the silence, not at first. A hot wind blustered through the trees, carrying grains of dust eager to find their ways into eyes, noses, mouths. The smell of the parched earth ignited into life under Kliff’s scratching fingernails, reeking of emptiness and begging for rain. Overhead, the leaves on the trees were starting to brown and curl up at the edges. Kliff drank it all in, and tried not to feel trapped.

“I…” Beside Kliff, Alm frowned slightly. “Have you heard anything about what’s going on in Zofia?”

“If you haven’t, you _know_ I haven’t,” but the thread of frustration coursing under the tone of Alm’s voice kept any irritation out of Kliff’s. “They closed down the school in town last year, remember? With that gone, there isn’t any reason for me to be leaving,” and this time, there was no withholding the bitterness from his voice.

“Sorry; just thought I should ask.” Alm stretched his legs out, resting one on top of the other. “I guess we’ll just have to ask the others when they get back.”

Kliff rolled his eyes. “If they even bother asking anyone. If they even bother to listen to anyone talking while they’re there. There may not be that much food over there, but there’s going to be plenty of wine and ale.”

This got Alm rolling his eyes, too, as he snorted. “Weren’t we picking Tobin up off the ground this time last year? I don’t get why anyone likes ale so much; I don’t get why everyone likes _wine_ so much.” He made a face. “It all tastes like someone crushed mana herbs and mixed it in old swill.”

Kliff kind of liked the taste of wine, especially the wine made in Ram Village. It was sweeter than most; lighter, too. But he did _not_ like the feeling of drunkenness on him, any more than he liked the following morning when the hangover took effect. “I think…” It was something of an effort to be charitable, but Kliff supposed it wouldn’t hurt to at least try. “…I think some people like the taste? And they like the way they feel when they’re drunk?”

“Maybe. It’s all kind of unbelievable to me.”

And they left it there, let any future words speculating on why people liked getting drunk be engulfed by a hot, dry wind and the rustling of leaves, where they really belonged, if Kliff was being honest. He didn’t know what else to talk about, not really. There was a part of him that itched to speak of what studies he had been able to conduct outside of school, however meager they might have been. There was a part of him that itched to speak of magic, though it wasn’t as if he could make much progress, when all he could do was try to make sense of what spells Sir Mycen was willing to let him look at out of his spellbook, while his mother was otherwise occupied and couldn’t raise objections.

_“Let me make one thing clear, boy.”_

_Kliff was nine years old, and had hours ago nearly set fire to Alm’s house. There was a gigantic black scorch mark on the exterior wall of the house, and given the look in Sir Mycen’s eye as he looked from that mark to Kliff, Kliff knew he could expect a thrashing the next time he was called out to train with a practice sword._

_Or maybe a bit sooner than that. It was hard to tell, with that particular gleam._

_“If I thought for one moment that you could be dissuaded from this path, I would take that book from you and burn it at this very moment.”_

_Kliff responded the only way that was truly appropriate, in a situation like this. He backed away from the man, clutching the spellbook close to his chest. His grip wasn’t equal to the task of keeping Sir Mycen from ripping the book away from him if he really wanted to; Kliff knew that. Kliff had watched Sir Mycen pick up a wounded sheep with next to no effort; he_ knew _he wasn’t strong enough to keep the man from wresting the book away from him. It would probably only take a moment._

_He expected a glare, a frown, a hand reaching out to take the spellbook away from him. When Sir Mycen shook his head and chuckled instead, Kliff blinked up at him in shock._

_“You’ve always been a stubborn one, Kliff,” Sir Mycen said to him, sighing. “Outstandingly stubborn. If I thought I could stop you, I would. But if I take that book away from you, you’ll just find another one, won’t you?”_

_Obviously, Kliff wasn’t just going to_ say _that. He knew how this game was played. He kept his silence._

_“Listen to me, boy.” Sir Mycen knelt down in front of Kliff. This close, Kliff could see just how deep the lines in his face were engraved, could watch as they ground themselves in even more deeply as he spoke. “You and I can come to an arrangement, but you must listen to me, and you must do as I tell you. Do you understand?”_

_Kliff nodded._

_“Do you understand, Kliff?” Sir Mycen repeated sternly._

_“…I understand_.”

Magic was something Kliff enjoyed doing. Magic was increasingly a source of frustration, as there were a highly limited number of spells Sir Mycen would let him practice. It was a source of frustration, as there was no one Kliff could turn to when he didn’t understand how something worked, and bringing any of it to his mother’s attention would just set her off again. He wanted to talk about it, wanted to talk about the power that coursed through his veins when he used it, wanted to talk about the wonder of learning a new spell, of digging through all of his books asking a question and finally finding the answer.

Maybe later. Maybe when he could trust his mouth to give forth anything but bitterness.

“Why… do you want to leave the village?”

Kliff knew why he wanted to leave. But for all that he had heard Alm express the _desire_ to leave many times before, he didn’t think he had ever heard Alm give a reason as to _why_ he wanted to leave so badly. He always skirted around the subject, and it could get pretty blatant that that was what he was doing—with Faye, especially, since she tended to just come out and ask him directly.

He didn’t know why Alm wanted to leave the village, and so he asked the question, in a softer, fainter voice than he had expected to hear coming out of his own mouth. Kliff had almost forgotten that his voice could entertain any tone without an edge as sharp as a sword.

And sure enough, Alm let out an airy laugh, still appealing to listen to, but carrying a ring of falseness that Kliff couldn’t ignore, or mistake. “Why wouldn’t I want to leave? Doesn’t everyone want to go out and see the world, at least once in their lives?”

“Faye doesn’t. I asked her, and she said she’d be happy to just stay here for the rest of her life.” There was a proviso there, but it didn’t require reference; it ought to be obvious to all who knew her. “I don’t think Tobin really does, either. So, why do you?”

“Why do I—“

“It’s about Celica, isn’t it?” Alm had talked about her all the time, just after Sir Mycen had taken her away to wherever it was she was living now. He had been inconsolable, refusing to play, refusing to do his lessons, and all he had wanted to talk about was Celica. “You want to go find Celica, don’t you?”

“That’s not why!” But Alm said it so quickly, so defensively, and when Kliff just looked at him, brow raised, he crumbled almost immediately. “I…” He scrubbed his face with the heel of his hand, letting out a sigh so hard it was as if all the air escaped him at once. “Why wouldn’t I?” was put forward with all the frustration of someone who had asked that question many times before. Kliff had overhead the conversations many times before, though the last time had been long enough ago that Kliff had thought the issue might actually be resolved. More fool him. “I still don’t understand why she had to leave, and grandfather won’t even tell me where she is. What if she’s in trouble?”

If Celica _was_ in trouble, there wasn’t a great deal Alm could do to intervene before the trouble was, one way or another, resolved itself. When you don’t know where someone is, and you have no real way to find out, it was hard to intervene when someone was in trouble. “I think Celica can handle herself.” For all that Celica had clearly not grown up anywhere in the vicinity of a remote, rustic village, and had to be taught so many things about rural life when she had come to Ram, she had learned quickly, and had been canny, in her own way. She’d always known just what to say and do to keep adults from growing angry with her, even Kliff’s mother. “She wasn’t here for very long, but she wasn’t a damsel in distress like some fairy tale.” She had been standoffish and a bit prickly and, well, that made two of them. “Do you really think it’s fair…”

His thoughts were a thorny mess impossible to articulate in terms anyone could readily understand, let alone Alm. Let alone Kliff himself. Impressing your feelings over the reality of a person was something he was… He couldn’t talk about it. The words pulled themselves apart and coalesced into an angry, buzzing cloud in his mind.

“It’s…” Alm managed to hold out for a few moments, before crumpling and muttering, “It’s probably not.” He smiled suddenly, so fondly and so wistfully that Kliff felt something in his stomach curdle. “She’d probably call me a clod again if I did something like that, and I’d have it coming. I just…” That smile somehow managed to become even fonder and even more wistful than before; crowned with dappled, Alm looked like something straight out of a fairy tale. “I want to see her again. We promised each other we’d stay together. I’d like to keep that promise.”

Kliff turned away. A spike of bitter regret punctured his lungs making it feel as if all the air in his body poured out through the phantom wound. The regret was something he didn’t quite understand, but when relief came surging up beside it, that much, he understood. It would all pass, in time. Nothing was ever equal to the task of maintaining itself alongside bitterness and that too-close feeling of being constrained, not without being dissolved and subsumed.

“I guess you’ll just have to find her, to find out if she still feels the same way.”

What would happen, if she didn’t? It had been a little over six years since Alm and Celica had last seen each other, at this point. Kliff thought about how much he had changed in that amount of time, and couldn’t imagine a world in which Celica hadn’t changed just as much. She had spent six years on a path that diverged from Alm’s; who knew how much a childhood promise might mean to her, anymore?

Somehow, Kliff didn’t think the meeting would be a happy one, if not.

“You want to come with me?”

The words came to Kliff’s ears dreamlike and distant, fuzzed over with an old longing that had begun to shrivel up. “What?” The word came out almost stuttered.

Alm smiled down at him, elbowing Kliff gently in the ribs. “Oh, come on. I know you’re itching to get out of here. When Grandfather finally lets me go out on my own, I’d be happy to take you with me.” His smile faded, ever so slightly. “I know you like to go off by yourself, but I think traveling sounds like it would be more enjoyable in groups. Or pairs.” More softly, “And I’d like you to come with me.”

Kliff was left frozen by the admission, heart coming to a standstill, half in welcome and half in rejection. The desire for solitude was a thorn in his still heart, that bitter regret a knife. But this was more than was required, more than could be hoped for from someone he had no claim over. Though Kliff had few bonds that led anywhere but into darkness, even though they felt at times more like hooks buried in his flesh, what bonds he had, he cherished. After his own fashion.

“I’d… like that.”

For however long it might last.


End file.
